6. Daddy Damage And Keeping Your Cape In The Closet
This version of Johnathan Kent does some serious daddy damage to young Clark. Am I the only one who loathed Pa Kent's worldview in Man Of Steel? Do we need a rural Midwesterner telling his teenage son to keep his cape in the closet until the world is ready to accept him? I'm sorry, but if superhero stories are the modern mythology or whatever, than their great purpose (besides entertainment) is this: they are stories about people who are or feel different, for audiences who feel different, too. And putting forth the idea that it's better to hide who you are until everyone else is ready to accept you just sucks. Costner's death by tornado almost works. The problem isn't that he sacrifices himself for his son - which is actually a nice parallel to the deaths of Supe's biological parents - but Pa Kent expects Clark to let him die when Clark could easily save him. All just to keep Clark's secret. That's pretty freakin' selfish and shortsighted. Because, you know, standing there watching your dad die unnecessarily isn't going to further mess up an already messed up kid. Also, when does Pa Kent expect there to be a good time for Superman to come out of the closet and admit he's super? You can either wait till an alien battleship shows up with a crazy-ass, genetically-engineered super-villain putting the fear of God in everyone... or you can save innocent people, your All-American father, and one cute dog from a natural disaster. By waiting till Zod shows up to reveal himself to the world, Superman makes himself the target of a witch hunt. Pa Kent's instills into Clark that the world is not ready for a superman, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Here's a bit of odd movie logic: the Superman of 2013 is informed by the events of today, even though the actual character would be formed by the events of a previous era. Kal-El comes to Earth in 1980. Jonathan Kent is dead and done his damage by 1997. This is a time before Columbine and Sandy Hook, 9/11 and Guantanamo Bay, Fox News and Reality TV. I don't know if the 80's and 90's were a simpler time, but I think we were less afraid then. We should be less afraid now. And Johnathan Kent - the moral center of what is traditionally a very moral, uplifting story - shouldn't base his decisions on fear, either. Again, no one is going to hate on a superhero whose debut on the nightly news is saving a cute dog from a tornado. It's just not going to happen... unless Superman immediately punt kicked said dog like that football in the original Richard Donner Superman.